Case Study: KOSTAL achieves optimized thermal, electromagnetic, and capacitive switch performance with COMSOL Multiphysics

Kostal - Customer Case Study

Kostal, a supplier of interior switching modules to major automakers, faced the challenge of ensuring lighting, capacitive sensors and novel inductive charging systems function reliably across extremes of temperature, moisture and use while meeting tight cost and integration constraints. To address gaps in thermal and electromagnetic analysis, Kostal adopted Comsol’s COMSOL Multiphysics to add thermal, electromagnetic and electrostatic simulation capabilities to its development process.

Using Comsol Multiphysics, Kostal simulated roof-module thermal behavior to manage LED heat into PCBs, optimized inductive-charging coils (producing a numerically optimized coil pair with approximately 95% system efficiency at 3 kW), and modeled capacitive sensors to tune sensitivity through 1 mm plastic covers. The Comsol-based approach reduced physical prototyping, sped up feasibility checks and optimization, and delivered validated performance across environmental ranges, cutting development time and costs.

Kostal

Matthias Richwin

Senior Manager, Technology Development & Quality—Simulation